Patrick Burgoyne- Industry Friday

Editor of Creative Review, Patrick Burgoyne came to talk to us the last week before the christmas holidays. He started off by telling us about how to get ourselves into the art industry through self promotion. He began with talking about his sector, the press, and how press releases work. He touched on how young artists can promote themselves through social media as much as possible in order to gain popularity and recognition. His journal Creative Review wants to talk about creative, talented people and he even showed us an example of a piece of work where and artist had taken initiative and written to Creative Review. The work she had sent in was in fact published on the cover.

He went on to describe how we would go about approaching a potential opportunity through writing a letter. Patrick said to aim to make out letters personal and show our personal identity as much as possible during the writing and artwork. He encouraged us to take initiative and think outside the box. He also told us the importance of high quality work and art that has been shot to a high standard. Along with this Patrick provided a do’s and don’t’s of letter writing and advices us to design the letter, keep it short, praise the company where appropriate and always remember to add contact details.

Patrick explained to us that when applying for competitions and internships always read the terms and conditions and when applying for a role he encouraged us to ask for a brief in order to show interest to the potential employer.

Keeping our portfolio up to scratch is key and another point that Patrick touched on a lot. He showed us some examples of interesting and intriguing portfolios that were alternative to what we would consider normally. This made them a lot more memorable and I wonder if I could use these pointers in order to create a stronger portfolio. Having both a hard copy and a copy on the web are really important along with supplying business cards.

This year Creative Review are covering more and more degree shows along with disciplines in their degree show edition. This will also cover Universities outside of London and will be both in print and online.

I personally thought Patrick’s talk was one of the best so far. He really appealed to us as young and aspiring artists in ways that we can promote ourselves. I responded positively to his talk and the advice he supplied us with, I think his information is more than valuable especially coming from someone who has been through this and has inside knowledge about the industry itself. Patrick’s talk inspired me to put myself out there and be more confident about getting in touch with people and network and make opportunities for myself. I am now eager to create a more interesting and memorable portfolio as this could open us more jobs for me and something I will be confident about showing potential employers. Overall this was a really positive upbeat talk.